Antibiotic agents are well known that are capable of entering the blood stream to fight infection, including bacterial infection, in a living body, and such use of antibiotic agents is known to include treatment for externally accessible soft tissue wounds, including skin tears and ulcers, for example, located on, or adjacent to the skin of the living body.
It is also now known that healing of soft tissue wounds can be enhanced by use of electrical stimulation applied to the wound (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,181).
It has also been heretofore suggested that iontophoresis can be used to treat a wound by driving a drug through the skin of a living body using a DC electrical signal (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,141,359, 4,460,689, 4,808,152, 4,865,582, 4,883,457, 4,921,475 and 4,931,046), and it has been heretofore suggested that an AC signal can be applied to a living body for pain suppression through the same electrode that is utilized to provide the DC signal to drive the drug into the body (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,702,732 and 4,786,277).
Thus, while the now known prior art shows the use of antibiotic agents capable of entering the blood stream to fight infection, as well as showing the use of electrical signals to promote healing of soft tissue wounds or to drive a drug into a wound, there is no apparent showing of treating a wound using antibiotic agents in combination with electrical stimulation to cause increased blood circulation at the infected wound site while the antibiotic agents are in the blood stream and thereby enhance resolution of infection at the wound site.